ARTBLOG

A pun post crossed my dash, and I reblogged it with an equally bad pun in return. A couple of my followers find it funny, it's a good day for everyone.

That was on July 7th.

Virality on Reddit was entirely algorithmic. You could garner a couple crossposts, but the success of a post was entirely dependent on whether or not it hit r/all--the main page of Reddit. If your post does that, it's immediately exposed to 10x the number of people and immediately gets upvoted.

On my pun post, I get a couple reblogs. And those reblogs get a couple reblogs--nobody really adds any content to the post, it just gets a couple reblogs here and there.

There's a specific chain of reblogs that I'd like to focus on. The most popular post on this chain has about 25 reblogs on it. Half the posts have three reblogs or fewer. Five posts in this chain have just one reblog total.

But the reblog chain keeps going. And going. It breaches containment many times over. And finally, after a chain THIRTY SIX posts long, at 9:30 AM, July 22nd this morning, it hits a popular account.

99% percent of the people who have seen the post--virtually unchanged from how it left my dash--have seen it because it was curated by 36 different people. That's insane to me.

None of those 36 people know that they're part of this chain. They saw a post, reblogged it, and moved on. If any one of these people had not reblogged, the post would have a fraction of the impact it has.

And yet, after two weeks, the post has effectively hit the main page of tumblr. It was picked up, only because people liked it enough to show it to their followers. There were no algorithms necessary.

extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example

entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.

S H A R E D  with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E  to do it. 

It's been a hot minute since I've done art, and I come bearing this tired piece! A new character I am in the process of making, who is currently nameless.

But I have a few details for them hammered out, such as:

they are always tired. Even fresh from a nap. They just can't seem to get restful sleep.

Hates the color of blood specifically, and hates the sight of blood by extention. (Has actually given themself a rash from angrily wiping blood off their arm before)

Favorite drink is coffee, favorite type is a caramel frappe with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Their bed is covered with blankets and plushies, and is used more told hold clothes rather than sleep in.

Is genderqueer.

And DONT REPOST stuff that’s already here! WHY do we even have to go through this again huh? DON’T. DO. IT.

I get the impulse to lurk, I do that the majority of time I’m here on tumblr. But lurking on tumblr works differently than on twitter: you quick reblog. Just reblog without adding comments or tags, takes the same amount of energy to hit the like button and is infintely more valuable. Reblogging on here is the equivalent of Twitter likes, not the equivalent of a retweet; that would be adding a comment on the post itself or in the tags. Likes here are for bookmarking or showing sympathy on a personal post that’s not for reblogging.

I want to hear them laugh, chat, comment, speak, roar, cry, get irrationally angry, I need people to respond to my art and get inspired and need more.

Varlent, he's kind of an asshole. And is a bit obsessed with Zyna. But also broke as fuck and just lives in an abandoned building. It looks nice though, because he spent a lot of time on making nice.

Varaz gave Marath a nonbinary pillow to explain more of human relations with gender, [as Varaz finds it fascinating to learn about them].

because appearently people here forgot that the ones who post original content would like to be supported. (and not because we're selfish, but because CREATING ORIGINAL CONTENT IS DIFFICULT AND TAKES TIME, and not receiving support is really demotivating. )

Now take a look at these.

The notes i used to get some months ago:

And the notes i get now:

People literally stopped reblogging art. (and tumblr hiding our posts and not suggesting them to other people SURELY DOESN'T HELP😀) Which makes me wonder.

WHY TF AREN'T PEOPLE REBLOGGING ORIGINAL CONTENT ANYMORE?

Reblogging is the only way you can help artists and writers to get the stuff they post seen by others, and it lets us understand that people care about what we do. Consider it like... giving a tip to the artist: they make original content, and if you really like it, you reblog it, helping them and also making them happy :). (Also if people don't reblog, small artists will never have the occasion to shine so PLEASE do it.)

Also, Liking a post is nice, yeah, but unfortunately it won't get the post anywhere.

So. If you like an artist/writer and wish to support them, LIKE but also REBLOG, it takes two seconds to click that green arrow button and share something with your followers and people should learn again how to do that.

Happy Knife without their mask.